I was recently approached by a consultancy looking for Software Defined Networking (SDN) migration case studies. I was unable to provide much help; in H2 2014, precious few organisations claim to use SDN in production. However an interesting question was raised, What are the steps to an SDN Migration?
As anyone who follows me on Twitter or has been within a quarter-mile of me the last month will know, I spent the last week in San Francisco with Juniper Networks for their Tech Summit at the Executive briefing centre in Sunnyvale California. Although I’ve been around the world a “bit” this was my first time in Silicon valley and the US. Continue reading
I’m very pleased to report that a book to which I’ve have contributed has now been published and is now available on iTunes and the Amazon Kindle Store. It is a “cookbook” which directly addresses some of the “most often seen” support issues around Juniper products.
Well my plan to update this blog more regularly in 2013 has well and truly gone to hell in a hand basket. Culminating in the closure of the the erstwhile posterous and me only managing to extract this content before it was deleted forever.
So here we are, finally gotten around to importing the old content into a shiny-new WordPress site. I even relented and sprung for a proper domain name, so when inevitably when WordPress gets purchased by ICanHazCheezburger and also shut down, I can ensure some sort of continuity.
It may appear that I’ve been a quiet on the blogging side for a bit but I’ve been working quietly away producing a total of four new blogs for Juniper J-Net. The first is already up, the other will be up in the next couple of weeks.
Deploying Network Access Control by Stealth
The first are a trilogy (another one!) on taking a tactical approach to deploying network access control in the Enterprise. I’ve seen this done wrong plenty of times and projects either flame out before they get anywhere near the purchase stage or worse, end up with going very Pete-Tong at the implementation and send a significant part of the network into Cardiac arrest. It’s not the “fault” of the technology at all; it’s a complex beast and interacts with the network in a hundreds of tiny ways. Most networks of any size rumble along with a variety of nasties lurking in the undergrowth; incorrect duplex, poorly conceived network routing, hideously out of date firmware, no reverse DNS etc. Apply NAC to a network which doesn’t have all these things dove tailed perfectly and you’re headed for a career limiting FAIL.
The blog also further skirts around issues of control around BYOD. It’s still not an idea I’m completely in Love with, but there are some evils I’m learning to live with. Applying NAC techniques and technologies to support BYOD is a significant step forward in doing BYOD “right”. I suppose my biggest issue is that there really isn’t much in the way of “best practice” yet; the technology on the enpoint is moving very fast indeed. Developing up to date client agents of major platforms Android, iOS, Windows Mobile and Symbian is a major PITA as the release platform release cycle is so fast. Not every vendor is opening up there API completely, not every platform has a guaranteed lifespan and some vendors have a torturously opaque application submission process (no prizes for guessing that one).
I am going to blog more about BYOD when I get a chance, but please take a look when you’ve a moment!
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